Kelly's Kitchen

My eye was caught by a recent Motorway Services Online tweet referring to Kelly’s Kitchen, as I’d idly wondered how Kelly’s Kitchen roundabout, on the southern edge of MK had come by its name.

Kelly’s Kitchen was evidently a short-lived chain of roadside eateries, I assume along the lines of the Happy Eater and the Little Chef. The logo was evidently this cheery-looking lady. I’ve no memory of them, though that’s probably not surprising as it doesn’t sound as though they existed for very long. It sounds from the Motorway Services online article as though they were created as a rival to Little Chef, albeit not a very successful one as they were rapidly taken over and became LCs.

I had a look at Google Maps to see where this restaurant would have been. It was on the 'island' formed by the old alignment of the A5 (Watling Street), which goes through Fenny Stratford, and the newer dual carriageway, which bypasses it.

Kelly's Kitchen roundabout; black line shows alignment of old A5

As of today, Street View is still showing the boarded-up former Little Chef (and even more former Kelly's Kitchen) building, which was apparently closed and demolished in 2012 (according to this, it stopped being a Kelly's Kitchen in 1991). In reality, the building has now gone and there's a double-decker McDonalds on the site.